these phenomena of nature; some root, some fountain, some hidden source whence they all proceed. This, whatever it be, from which all things proceed and to which all things tend, the one substance that under all modifications remains unchanged-this, if you can but find it, is the first principle of all. And what can this be, what more likely to be it, than water, by which all things are begotten and nourished.* The view of Thales is thus stated by Aristotle. The sustenance of all things is moisture, from moisture warmth proceeds, from warmth everything living draws its life; also all seeds are moist; but the source of moisture is water (Metaph. i. 3). It is thus stated by Fries (vol. i. 103), "Simple analogy seems to have guided Thales. The ground under our feet is mostly formed of water. Water gives and holds all lives. From heaven it comes. To heaven it mounts; and back again to the earth it must descend, ever changing. From the water, the clouds; from these the lightnings; to the lightnings perhaps that heavenly fire of the stars is itself allied." Very simple idea, you will say, but what more natural? The Ionian philosophy, remarks the same writer, seems from the first to have fixed upon the unity of the law of natural phenomena through evaporation, which, indeed, in sacrifice gave the idea of the communication of man with the gods. The idea of Thales, according to Ritter, is that the world is produced from water, as anything is produced from its seed; water being the seed of the earth, which is but a growth, a development of a preëxisting form of life. The entire world, according to this, is a living thing, a being gradually forming from an imperfect seed-state, and possessing a sort of vitality and soul. How nearly, in this view of the gradual formation o * Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Math. vii. 5; Diog. Laertius, i. 27; Cic. Acad. ii. 37; Aristotle, de Cœlo, 11, 13; Cic. de Nat. Deorum, lib. i. the earth from a previous imperfect and, as it were, seedstate, and of the important agency of water as the prime element of this transformation,-how nearly in this does the old Greek philosophy come to certain modern geological theories respecting the aqueous origin and formation of the earth. "Could anything," says an eloquent writer, "be more naturally present to an Ionian mind than the universality of water? Had he not from boyhood upward been familiar with the sea ?" "There about the beach he wandered, nourishing a youth sublime, With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of time." "When gazing abroad upon the blue expanse, hearing the mighty waters rolling evermore, and seeing the red sun, having spent its fiery energy, sink into the cool bosom of the wave, to rest there in peace, how often must he have been led to contemplate the all-embracing, all-engulfing sea, upon whose throbbing breast the very earth itself reposed. This earth how finite, and that welling sea how infinite! "Once impressed with this idea, he examined the constitution of the earth. There also he found moisture everywhere. All things he found nourished by moisture; warmth itself he declared to proceed from moisture; the seeds of all things are moist. Water when condensed becomes earth. Thus convinced of the universal presence of water, he declared it to be the beginning of things.' وو It is possible to refer this theory of water as the άpxý, or first principle, to the ancient tradition that the sun and stars are born of the sea, out of which they seem to rise. The essential points in this theory are not peculiar to Thales, indeed, but common to the Ionian philosophers, viz.: 1, That the world is a living thing; 2, That it proceeds. from some simple primary substance, the seed of things not yet developed. The peculiarity of his theory, in distinction from others, is that he discovered or supposed water He had no idea of inert what the chemist means such properties, but rather The soul with Thales is the to be this first principle. In common with the ancients, he conceived of matter, not as we do, extended, impenetrable, moist, but only as a form of life. matter. Nor was water with him by it, a fluid having such and the parent and seed of all life. principle of motion. Whatever moves, then, and of course whatever lives, has a soul. The universe has; this great, broad, beautiful earth-what is it but a moving, a living thing, with a soul animating its giant frame. Simple idea this, but not without its beauty and sublimity. Plutarch (de Plac. Phil. i. 8), makes Thales the first to distinguish between θεος, δαίμων, and ἥρως; the soul of the world, a spiritual being, and a human soul separate from the body. Yet this distinction is probably of earlier origin, as in Hesiod. Nothing hindered Thales from teaching the immortality of the soul, since death is only a change of existence, a transformation of the soul. Diogenes, accordingly, ascribes this doctrine to him, and Plutarch intimates or implies it in the above. Schwegler considers the ideas of a world-soul, of a personal God, and the immortality of the soul, to be of later origin; so also Fries. Aristotle ascribes the idea of a creative intelligence to a later origin; yet he admits Thales to hold the idea of Godas world-soul or nous; and all things to be full of divinity (de Anim. i. 5, 15; so Diog. L. i. 27, and Stobæus, Ecl. Phys. i. 2, νοῦν τοῦ κόσμου). Was Thales a theist or an atheist ? Lewes says not the latter; Ritter and Cousin deny that he was the former, and with reason; so Mallet; for his gods are not intelligent, self-existent, independent of the world; nor are they creators. The cosmogony of Thales corresponds to that of the poets and the priests of the age-they made Ocean and Tethys the parents of the gods; so Homer. Diogenes Laertius contradicts himself in ascribing to Thales the apothegms: that God is unbegotten, and that the world is the work of God; for he elsewhere says that Anaxagoras was the first to recognize an intelligence above matter. Cicero contradicts himself in the same way,-probably having in view the maxims now cited,-yet ascribing the same discovery to Anaxagoras. Aristotle explicitly says (Met. i. 3) that Anaxagoras was the first who held this: "When a man comes to announce that there is in nature, as among animals, an intelligence which is the cause of the order and arrangement in the universe, this man seems alone to have preserved his reason amidst the follies of his predecessors. Now we know with certitude, that Anaxagoras was the first to enter upon this point of view." Was Thales then an atheist ? Rather, we should say, a pantheist; his view is not that of a creator, but of a spirit, or soul, pervading all, and filling all, and this is his deity (See especially Mallet, Histoire de la Philosophie Ionienne, article Thales). The gods of Thales, like man, proceed from the elementary moisture; hence not self-existent, but subject to destiny-the blind moving force of the universe. The following apothegms are ascribed to Thales, but perhaps with insufficient, at least doubtful, authority (Diog. L. i. 35, 36, 37; Plutarch. Conviv. c. 9). They are beyond doubt very ancient proverbs. The oldest of beings is God, the unbegotten, No thought of man is concealed from God. What thou condemnest in another, that do thou not. What is the easiest? To advise another. Death distinguishes not itself from life. § 2.-ANAXIMANDER. In placing Anaximander next to Thales, I do but follow the voice and verdict of antiquity, which have assigned him that place. It is very doubtful, however, whether he does properly rank next in point of time; still more doubtful whether he is to be regarded as the disciple of that master. The doctrines of the two, however, are nearly enough allied to admit of his being classed with the former philosopher as of the same school. Apollodorus makes him the contemporary and friend of Thales; so all antiquity. He was born at Miletus, about 611 B. C.; died 547. His general line of thought places him with the mechanists, rather than the dynamists, the first of that school. He did not, like Thales, inquire for some one simple element, as air, water, etc., from which all things proceed by a living force, a development theory, but explains the formation of things by the changes and transformations which occur in the diverse parts of a whole, composed, not of some few simple principles, as air, water, etc., but of an indefinite number of elements. (So Ritter.) His elementary principle is an abstract one. The Infinite or unlimited; rò ǎrepov (and this is one), (Aristotle, Phys. i. 4, 5; Sext. Emp. Hyp. Pyrr. iii. 30; Adv. Math. vii. 5, ix. 360; Cic. Acad. ii. 37). Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch, Eusebius, all state the same. The latter says (Præp. Evang. i. 8), “Anaximander, friend of Thales, says the Infinite contains likewise the first cause of all things as to generation and destruction." It is the all-embracing, the God-like in nature (Arist. Phys. iii. 4), (without form or qualities, so Arist. Phy. iii. 4) (Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. 10). How does he derive the universe from this arepov, the Infinite? Not by development of one substance or element into all other things, as Thales, by a power inherent in itself, but his apeiron is a |